I recently found a bunch of lenses for scientific lab photography scattered around a dumpster at the university where I work. I scrounged all the ones that looked worth keeping and have been playing with them ever since. None of them will actually attach to my camera lenses so I have to hold them in place by hand. This shot was taken with a combination of two lenses that turn my 50mm (70mm equivalent) lens into a macro. Your Spring Shooting Challenge gave me the perfect opportunity to put it to the test. I was inspired by your cover photo and went out to the yard, laid down on the ground and shot until my battery died. I was pleasantly surprised by the clarity of the image and only had to crop a bit of vignetting. I processed it a bit in Aperture 3 et voila!
Canon EOS 400D Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II ISO 100 50mm 0EV f/18 1/15 sec AWB RAW - Jasper Colt

Taken with a Canon PowerShot SX10 IS while out for a walk on a somewhat dreary Sunday. Didn't feel like going on my normal walk, so I took the camera for a walk to where I knew there are flowers blooming. Out of 123 photos, this was one of three favorites. - Jeffrey Fetterman
While I was out on a overcast day, the sun decided to come out to play, opening up my eyes to my vision of spring : blooming flowers. I decided to showcase the Iris's beautiful delicate features by putting myself on the floor and using the natural sunlight to backlight the crepe-paper-like petals, leaving the petals glowing against the endless blue sky. - Jennifer Castro
Once the challenge was announced I knew I wanted to take pictures of flowers in my own yard with a Nikon Micro lens I got for my birthday two weeks ago. I went out and shot a few pictures of some pink flowers in our front yard. I wish I could describe the flower more, but as a guy I know very little about flower types. Anyways, I really liked the center of this flower, in particular the orange and silverish accents. The silver portions looked like they were shining back at me, which I really liked. I cropped the photo a bit to keep the center of the flower in the center of the shot.Nikon D3100 AF-S Micro Nikkor 40mm lens f/6.3 Exposure time 1/60 sec ISO 400 - Jerardo Arciniega
My one year old son and I were taking an afternoon walk in the park (Gainesville, FL) when he found this large green caterpillar. I was able to get a few shots of the bug before my son started to play with it. Camera Nikon D7000 Lens: VR 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6G 300mm – ISO 100 1/250s – f/7.1 - Jimmy Webb
Weather is sporadic in the SF Bay Area, and it's been raining a lot, even though it's officially Spring. I decided to step outside and snap some photos of water droplets on plants. You know, nature stuff. Then I saw the rain - which was coming down heavily at this point - on the glass table in the backyard. I love the way the droplets look as they broke against the surface with some of the water bouncing back up. I wanted to capture as much of the rain falling as I could, so I set the camera to 1/2500 and to compensate for the poor light I opened the f-stop almost all the way, along with setting the ISO pretty high at 3200 (which was probably a little too high considering the grain I got as a result). Camera: Canon 7D Lens: 50mm prime ISO: 3200 Aperture: f2.2 1/2500 sec - Joberta Atienza
Around the stairs leading to my house we have about 15 magnolia trees and my mother had been forcing me to take a picture of it. Then the morning I was going to take the pictures I saw the shooting challenge on Gizmodo and made this a project. Using Canon 600D Canon 50mm F1.8 II 1/4000 F1.8 ISO 100 - Joel Hempenius
I was out shooting in the woods near my house, hoping for a little sun, but the weather wouldn't play nice. I returned home and was getting out of my car when the coulds parted, the sun hitting some grape hyacinths that had taken over my garden. There's a purple heather in the background. I remembered seeing the spring challenge and thought, well, this might work out... Sony SLT-A65V, 1/125 @ f/6.3, ISO 100, Tamron 50-300 lens. - Julian De Puma
I call this photo "Frances", after a close family friend who died the day I took this picture. I got the call in the morning, left work, spent time with my family grieving, and then went for a walk to be alone with my thoughts and my camera. Camera: Nikon D3100 Lens: 18-55mm Kit Lens (My walking around lens) ISO: 100 - Justin Beck
When I think of spring, I think of budding flowers and pretty colors. I went outside my building and there was a flower bush with bright pink buds everywhere and I just thought it was very pretty and I loved how vibrant the color was. The camera setting for this photo was .4 sec at f/3.5 at 90 mm with ISO at 400. Since the colors are so bright on their own I didn't do any post processing. - Katrina Giusti
At a butterfly preserve in Florida, I found this one colorful butterfly resting on a leaf nearby the fountain. I set up the shot to include the butterfly in the foreground with a large aperture to blur the fountain in the background. The framing allowed a contrast between the butterfly's wings and the water of the pond. Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II Lens: EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Settings: f/4 105mm 1/125 ISO 250 - Kumar Ilangovan
Last Thursday I went out and took some great pictures of a blossoming tree and some flowers during my lunch break at work. Then Friday during lunch I see the new shooting challenge is Spring, so I went out again and took some more pictures! One of my favorite pictures from the day before was the white blossoms against the blue sky, so I went for the same thing again, along with a lot of pictures of bees. Today my wife and I went hiking and I took pictures of some wildflowers. I let her pick her favorite picture from the two days for this shooting challenge, and this is the one she chose. I hope you like it as well! The picture was taken with a Canon 60D and a 55-250mm F/4-5.6 telephoto lens at 250mm, f/5.6, 1/1000 sec, and ISO 100. The camera was hand held. - Logan Thomas
I originally considered submitting a shot of the famous cherry blossoms on my school campus at University of Washington, but I thought this little blue flower did better in capturing the essence of the rainy spring of the Pacific Northwest. I shot this with my Olympus E-PL1 with the 14-42mm lens. F/5, 1/100sec, ISO 500, focal length at 26mm, and edited in Lightroom. - Lucas Lin
Taken during an impromptu trip to the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY while gingerly avoiding the bumble bees and daffodils on the ground, stealthily hiding from the squirrels as not to disturb them, and waiting patiently for the spring breeze to stop. Taken with a Canon PowerShot ELPH 100 HS
focal length: 5mm f/2.8, 1/1250 shutter ISO 100 - Marie Burio
Last fall, my father and I found a great sale on a variety of tulip bulbs at Lowe's. I had been wanting to plant some tulips in my backyard since I was able to move into a place with an actual yard. In total we planted close to 300 bulbs in a small patch of ground on the side of my house. Since then I've been waiting for spring to arrive to see all of them bloom. Enter Spring. The tulips first started flowering a few weeks ago and I've been tempted to play around with some macro photos. This contest gave me an excuse to do that. I've let the camera do all the hard work since I'm still trying to figure out how to take good photos. I took quite a few pictures, but this was by far the best. Camera: Canon PowerShot G12 F-stop: f/4 ISO: 80 Macro setting, camera auto-adjust. - Mark McNiff
taken with my Sony A55 with a 70-200mm zoom lens@180mm and the mode switched to macro. I also used a ND4/ND8 and soft contrast filter. These buds are from my Hostas that just broke the ground this week. the winter has been mild enough that even though we left them in the ground this winter, they seem fine. - Marvin Francois
Growing up in Charleston, SC when Spring starts the trees and grass begin to turn an extremely vibrant green, and nothing screams the start of Spring like Easter. Easter eggs bring back memories of hunting for them when I was a child. This was shot with a Canon Rebel XSi with an 18-55mm lens. The settings were ISO 200, 1/5 second, and F-stop 22 at 18mm focal length. Some minor adjustments in Adobe Lightroom. - Matthew Bailey
I headed out to the park with some friends on one of the sunniest days of the year to get some shots with a new lens. (Sun in March is extremely rare in England!) When I saw a tree full of blossom I thought that this represented spring perfectly. I changed the lens to a faster focusing one and when I was snapping away when the wind started to blow some petals off the flowers so I took a few quick shots and this was the best. Taken of a Sony A77 with 15-50 f2.8 SSM kit lens @ ISO100, 50mm, f/2.8 and 1/400 shutter. - Matthew Phillips
After reading the challenge, a friend of mine suggested taking a picture of a spring. He was joking, but I did just that. After handing me a spring I threw it in the grass and continued taking pictures of it using a point and shoot until I got the angle I liked. The photo suggests mother nature is overtaking machines due to the return of spring and the continued efforts to go green. Polaroid i236 1/250 sec. ISO-100 F/3 - Michael Eicholtz
I decided to take advantage of the pleasant weather this past Sunday afternoon by going on a hike near my home in Central Ohio when I remembered this weeks challenge. I took a number of photos but in the end this dandelion turned out the best, and when they start popping up through the grass you know spring has truly begun. Canon EOS Rebel T1i Shutter Speed 0.003 sec (1/400) Aperture f/9.0 ISO 100 Lens EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II - Michael Fisher
Perfect timing for this challenge! It's Spring in Scottsdale, Arizona, and the citrus are all in bloom. Our mature grapefruit tree is full of open flowers, and the air is vibrating with the humming and buzzing of all the insects out for a spring feeding. This one paused just long enough to look me in the eye... Canon 50D, 100mm f/2.8 macro, shot at ISO 320, f/16, 1/250s, with Speedlite 430EX off-camera - Mitch Ross
This is the first shooting challenge for me. Spring is one of my four favorite seasons, and I love shooting pictures in it. I took this shot this morning, right outside a minor league stadium. The groundskeepers must enjoy daffodils, as there were dozens upon dozens of them planted there. I put my camera on a tripod about a foot off the ground, and focused on a group of flowers that seemed to have personality. Canon EOS 7D Lens: EF 50mm 1.4 F/1.4 1/3200 sec. ISO-100 50 mm - Moshe Gluck
When I think of spring, I think less of flowers and more of animals. Here is my recently adopted spring baby, galloping towards me. Spring is good weather, green grass, and happiness, and that is everything this picture is. EF 50mm 1.4 1/1600 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400 - Nick Badger
Shot with a tripod mounted 7D and 100mm f/2.8 Macro L at 1/200 of a second, f/5.0, ISO 200. I work at a local green house, and the blooming tulips caught my eye yesterday while I was at work. Stopped by after school today before I even heard about the challenge to take some photos, and this shot is the best of the bunch. - Paul Bierworth
Yesterday afternoon in Seattle, WA was one of the most memorable afternoons this spring since we saw a glimpse of sun rays through the scattered rain clouds. Having been indoors all day watching the end of the NCAA semi-finals game (Louisville vs. Kentucky), I decided to peek outside and everything was shiny since it had rained most of the day. The scene was like a glimmer of hope for a sunny SPRING in the mist of typical wet, overcast Seattle weather. The golden moss and flower stood out to me against the dull cement ledge in my backyard. Using the green grass and wooden fences in the background, I snapped the shot focusing on the moss. The white flowers were an awesome addition to the shot. Loved the composition of the photo with no alteration just simply RAW. I hope you like it as much. Canon EOS 60D 18-135 mm lens at Focal Length: 87.00 mm Aperture: 8.0 Exposure time: 1/159 ISO: 160 No Flash - Rene Rodriguez Lara
I took a trip to Chicago this week with my wonderful girlfriend Marisa. The city went all out for spring and if there was a public flower bed it probably has covered with tulips. There was a couple patches in Millennium Park that really stood out for their color in the gray misty. Marisa pointed out the yellow egg shaped tulip in and amongst the others and really wanted a picture of it. Along with the focus, subtle leading lines the yellow stands out. All the color in this picture really is that striking, I converted it directly with no adjustments in Nikon's ViewNX. Nikon D90, VR 18-200mm ISO 1600, 1/1600s, F/5. - Robert Bejarano